Alan Jones breaks down over drought-stricken farmers

Alan Jones struggled with his emotions describing the plight of drought-stricken farmers | WATCH

Alan Jones has broken down on his television program as he described the plight of drought-stricken farmers and warned Scott Morrison if the crisis wasn’t addressed quickly, “the political fallout will be terminal.”

Jones, a staunch defender of farmers, had fiercely attacked the Prime Minister on his 2GB breakfast show on Tuesday over the government’s response to the drought, at one point allowing his frustration to boil over as he snapped at Mr Morison: “Oh don’t talk to me, I’m a farmer’s son and you’re not.”

Mr Morrison repeatedly asked Jones to “let me finish’’ as he batted off the broadcaster’s questions about the fate of drought-hit farmers.

Jones returned to the subject on his Sky News program Jones & Credlin, saying Mr Morrison had “disappointed millions of Australians.”

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“I begged him to provide fodder, water and freight so farmers wouldn’t have to send their breeding stock to slaughter. He just didn’t understand,” he said.

Jones played the audio of a call he had received from Mark, a distraught farmer in Bourke after his interview with Mr Morrison had aired. The farmer wept as he told Jones: “We’ve got no hope and begged the Prime Minister: “Give us some hope.” Mark said his children wouldn’t return to his farm because there was “nothing out there.”

Another listener, Mary, wrote in to say that hearing Mark break down in tears “cut us open.”

She said she knew Mark, a pillar of the Bourke community. “So if Mark is on a national radio show breaking down it really is because there is no hope. And if he’s saying it it’s because the community is feeling it.

“They are going to lose themselves,” she warned.

Jones’ voice cracked as he fished reading Mary’s message and swore to keep the pressure up on Mr Morrison and the government.
“We will fight because I have been exactly where the people of Bourke are,” he said. “My old man would be ashamed of me if I didn’t fight. I can’t speak for Canberra …”

Struggling to speak, he asked for a commercial break. When he returned, he briefly apologised, saying:” Look, sorry about that.”

During the program, Jones read out other messages from farmers, saying of those in Canberra: “They’ve never been where we have been.”

He warned: “The Morrison government tonight has a massive political crisis on its hands. It can be solved, but it’d want to be solved in a hurry otherwise the political fallout will be terminal.”